Figured I'd start up a dedicated thread for this, rather then cluttering up the Welcome thread for new users.

As I mentioned in said thread, I'm a TIMGUL oldie, and have been a Music series loyalist since I was about 8 or 9. I've fiddled around with other programs here and there- I've done some chiptune work using DETUNE Inc.'s "iYM2151" iPad app, and I've done a bit of mucking around with FL Studio- but Music 2000 is the program I cut my teeth on, and over the years I've picked up a number of tricks and skills to combat it's various limitations. Part of why I've stuck with it, besides simple familiarity, is the aesthetic quality of it's output; songs made in Music 2000 tend to sound very "oldschool", because... well, it's a sequencer that's nearly two decades old. When you primarily write music harkening back to older electronica styles or mid-to-late-90s video game music styled stuff, that quality is a boon, haha.

I'm gonna kick this thread off with a little bit of a comparison, using two of the albums currently available on my bandcamp page. The first is a large collection of my older work;

A few odds and ends here were posted back in my TIMGUL days, some of it came after or never made it to the forums for whatever reason, and there's even a few pre-TIMGUL pieces I wrote 10 years ago (those are the ones that were quite obviously recorded on a battery-powered-MP3-player-microphone, natch). The quality of composition and arrangement is all over the board, but it's a pretty good showcase of the various different things I tried to achieve the sounds and styles I wanted, as well as a decent rundown of my evolution over the course of time.

Compare and contrast that to my most recent work, written at the end of last year:

I picked up the tradition of doing a yearly christmas album in 2012, wherein the idea is to write a new song every two days between the 2nd of December to Christmas Eve- resulting in 12 tracks, of course. Needless to say writing 12 fleshed out songs in a 24 day period is a grueling undertaking (and thanks to unfortunately timed family tragedies, last year's was a particularly brutal process), but it's been an invaluable practice in refining and developing my musical skillset. With each new 12 Tracks album, a spike in the quality of the music I make has tended to follow, and some of the best material I've written has come from these little albums. It's also nothing short of a miracle that this was the first time in five years when I didn't manage to get 12 finished pieces out over the course of December, but 10 out of 12 ain't bad either!

Oh, and to clear up before there's any confusion; all the aliases listed on both albums are me. I split my music up over a couple of names based on genre/style, or in some cases use one-off names for certain projects. As I host music by other artists on 103 Records, I designated which pieces are actually mine on albums with a little "all music/tracks x-thru-y composed by Decon Theed" tags, but honestly, you'll be able to tell which ones are mine by sound alone if you opt to go digging around the site for further listening Each alias is also repped by a little character (or in some cases, entire fictional bands ala Gorillaz), who occasionally pop up in album and promo art.

I've been on a bit of a sabbatical from music composing this year for a host of personal reasons, but as and when new music happens I will happily update this thread for those that are interested- I also highly emplore you to check out other releases on the site, both my work and the work I host by other musicians. If you've got any questions about my music writing process, by all means ask- I genuinely love talking about my creative process, lol.

« Last Edit: May 12, 2017, 01:41:47 pm by Decon Theed »

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.

Anyway war sucks. Just bring us your food instead of missiles :P ~ DJ Omnimaga (11.10.2016 20:21:48)if you cant get a jframe set up, draw stuff to it, and receive input, i can only imagine how horrible your game code is _._ ~ c4ooo (14.11.2016 22:44:07)If they pull a Harambe on me tell my family I love them ~ u/Pwntear37d (AssangeWatch /r/)make Walrii great again ~ DJ Omnimaga (28.11.2016 23:01:31)God invented the pc, satan the smartphone I guess ~ p4nix (16.02.2017 22:51:49)

Hahaha, that album is only a chunk of my music, too; my current track total stands at 644 pieces of music, roughly. I've lost a lot of stuff over the years too, so even that isn't the "actual" total number of tracks I've. Such is the consequence of writing music for over a decade, haha~ I still have to release a chunk of that track total through 103 Records, but I've got a few "old work" compilations lined up to come out over the course of the year similar to Long Forgotten Leftovers (or others I'd released prior).

And hahaha, nah, I don't actually store my tapes, CDs, vinyls etc. in or on crockery/ That was all staged purely for the photo- the concept of which only came about because I'm the only person that thought the "Leftover" pun in the album title was actually funny. It goes without saying that none of the stuff pictured contains my music. The vinyls are warped or damaged records I've held onto to one day use for Scratching, the CDs are CD-R's with an outdated version of my sample library burned onto them, the tape casettes are a mixture of official and custom tapes I've had for years, and the floppy discs are a cracked copy of the amiga version of Flashback. That's why everything is laid out so as to obscure what it is in some manner.

« Last Edit: May 15, 2017, 02:38:23 pm by Decon Theed »

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.

Sadly, I only have access to the rough recordings of my oldest material. A few files also got quality-compressed during transfers between different machines/people over the years, so some of the material sounds a little rough.

I should also point out that several songs changed projects and designations several times, so in some cases pold songs wound up with different titles (and in a few cases, were reassigned to another of my aliases).

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.

Well, a fairly big anniversary passed on Tuesday of this week; it was the 5th Anniversary of 103 Records' debut that day! Whilst it's no major player in the netlabel scene, the little success it's had is humbling (given it's a podunk little label I run from my bedroom in my spare time), and I've been very lucky to work with and host the music of some extremely talented musicians alongside myself. I also first started pursuing music as a serious creative outlet back in 2007, so this year could technically count as the 10th anniversary of my "career", if you will.

In honour of the event, I put out a little single featuring one brand new song, an older song I thought I'd lost access to ages ago, and a demo of a song I hope to finish in the (if we're lucky, near) future! You can purchase/DLit here:

Your support will be mightily appreciated: the new track, Funky Music to Rebel By, is the first piece I've properly worked on in nearly eight solid months, after a whole host of personal life issues and problems with depression and anxiety kept me out of the music game. To say I'm extremely proud of the end result would be an understatement. Hopefully the little b-side, which was intended as a joke track, gives you a little laugh too~

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.

Thank you! And hahaha, yep; I've done the odd speedcore/rotterdam techno piece here and there I've actually got a few demos for pieces in that style I've had laying around for years on memory cards I do intent to finish, at some point. I'm a big fan of the more extreme end of hardcore music- speedcore, rotterdam techno, breakcore, extratone etc.- if it's bulls*** fast and has stomps that burst subwoofers, I'm all over it, haha!

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.

So, uh, hey there. It's been a few, hasn't it? Wasn't intended, I assure you; 2017 was a very difficult year for me, specifically on the mental health front (not too ashamed to admit here that I suffer quite badly from Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder), and for most of the year it totally robbed me of my ability to make music. Which, as you can imagine, broke my heart. It's honestly nothing short of a miracle that Funky Music to Rebel By even got made or came out as well as it did, given the state I was in at the time.

However, things did start to turn around a bit come December. I'd been writing albums every Christmas season since 2012, and as bad off as I was, I was not about to let one pass without something.

It gives me great pleasure to share this with y'all, as it is by far and away some of the best material I have written in the ten or so years I've been producing music using the ever reliable Music 2000. Normally the Christmas albums come in at 12 tracks, one every two days between the 2nd and 24th of December, but given how long it'd been since I seriously worked on anything I eased myself in by doing half the amount of tracks, on a much looser schedule- I didn't actually get the last track done until January 5th, if I'm honest! I also, this go around, forwent using any external samples at all; something I very rarely do these days. Partially it was to save on some stress- that way, I could save tracks and take breaks rather then leaving the console running for upwards of three days at a time- but it was also a statement of intent on my part. When y'tell people you make music using a very old bit of software for the original Playstation, that tends to turn heads and put misconceptions in more close minded folk's imaginations; because of this, and because this album was a celebration of both the 5th anniversary of my netlabel and my 10th year in this music gig, I made it a point to do almost everything solely within the programs confines; the only bit of smoke-and-mirrors stuff going on was the fact that, due to memory limitations, songs were recorded in chucks so I could free up space by clearing out non-necessary stuff after I was done with it (these would then be stitched together in Wavepad later- a technique I've used for years now, and hopefully its seemless!), and I provided some custom vocal work myself here and there. So, perhaps a more accurate title for the minialbum would be XMAS 2017: 103 5th ANNIV. / 99.9% M2K, but that doesn't really roll of the tongue as nicely. Regardless, the mission was clear; I was setting out to prove you could make some really stellar stuff using said ancient software, if you were prepared to put in the time and effort to learn it through and through, and fight with its various quirks, (mostly) without the aid of modern technology or samples outside of the programs built-in library. The niche nature of the software and the kind of "sound" it produces is something that's grown a lot on me in the last couple of years especially, to the point of actively seeking out music made with it and informing people of what little I can remember of the scene around it when it was more active- so an album bolstering M2K's rep was a no-brainer.

All the pieces contained on here are also retreads of older demos or sketches I'd started, but never finished; of the 642 songs of mine I've got, a fair chunk of them are unfinished scraps, and I figure a good angle for a celebratory release was going back and finishing them off. Absolutely all of them are wildly different then the initial sketches, natch, but hey ho!

However, to prove this wasn't just a fluke, I also managed to put together another couple of pieces throughout February- one a fairly long track in a genre I'd been itching to try out (funky house) and done as a birthday gift for my partner, who loves said style of music (and is also the person that provided the cover art for this release, XMAS 2017, and a great number of my releases over the years); and a fun little "blow-off-steam" track I put together in a couple of days for a lark tossed in as a B-Side. The samples are back in for these ones, though, ha ha- the main track is actively built around Logo and Dawn Joseph's cover of Coldplay's "Don't Panic", for one, and the b-side is loaded with samples fresh out of 1993.

If you could listen to both of these in full- and download/purchase 'em if you dig 'em- I'd be mighty appreciative. A lot of hard work went into both of them, and I am immeasurably proud of them, and super excited at the potential for further growth and development of my skills both bring to the table. Thank you

Short URL:

Logged

I listened to Techno just once, and my entire life fell to pieces instantly.